A week at home's given me plenty of time to think, dream, reconsider, hope, plan, and make a hot mess of some yarn. Repeatedly. Malabrigo Rios -superwash, worsted, and super soft- was the unlucky victim this painkiller fogged week. It started as a pair of socks. Not just any socks, but possibly the softest superwash socks on the planet. Better that halfway through the first sock
, I started to reconsider. The LYS had recommended it when I mentioned knitting worsted socks (my slightly fogged reasoning being that worsted meant fewer stitches to frog). It was love at first sight-the colors are stunning (something my point and shoot Kodak was hard pressed to show on a cloudy afternoon). And it's squishy. Squishy enough that socks for an active adult didn't seem like the brightest choice after all. (The pattern was 'Whitby' from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road. Simple and very attractive but not for this wool) So I frogged them and started a Palindrome scarf on size threes, switching to fours after the first pattern repeat (that flare thing reversible cable scarves do at the ends drives me nuts). It was pretty enough but not rocking my world so back to the frog pond. Same thing happened with the next scarf. After an irritated dig through my pile of "someday" patterns- those patterns waiting for something NOT in the stash- waaaay down at the bottom was poor old Clapotois, knitted by every woman in the world, except me.
(yes, it's the same yarn as in the first pic but the sun's out today. Beautiful stuff.) Anyway, I've got a follow up doc appointment later today and should have enough time in the waiting room to swatch it.
The great thing about having spent a few months wondering if the Big C was coming to mess up life was deciding why wait to find out? Why not upset the applecart? Some people might call this a midlife crisis; me, I think 'aggressively transitional' sounds better.
40(ish) seems to be the point were infallibility fails, big time. Mortality shows it's oogly face. Apropos of nothing, and despite the fact that it's been 16 years since my last run, training for a 5K seems perfectly reasonable. (The lime green Chucks have absolutely NOTHING to do with running. Imagine the pain. They're reserved strictly for skateboarding with my 10 year old who enjoys telling people that his mom taught him to skateboard.) Yes, this is New England and there's a dearth of 5Ks from December until about April (except for the crazy people mountain runs) which is fine with me. The Couch to 5K program takes about 8 weeks but given the sorry state I'm in, extra training time is wise and very likely necessary.
Beyond running, what else? Since January, I've officially had sole financial responsibity for the kids (unofficially long before that and don't talk to me about child support. Had a support hearing 4 weeks ago and still waiting for the order. Since budget cuts have the courts backed up for months this could stretch on for a bit) and while we're managing, it's because we're living with my parents and pay roughly half of what we would if we lived in the real world. If I was contending with attorneys fees and 'real world' living expenses, we'd be living in hand me down refrigerator box. Oh boy. My parents intend to sell the house and retire in the South in the next few years. So things have to change, though it'll probably mean finding a secondary source of income. Having 4 kids in a depressed economy doesn't exactly compel me to shed the shackles of a day job and follow my dreams inot the sunset. Not yet, anyway. We're a little too attached to having health insurance. For the time being, I'm going to keep an open mind, do a few things I might never have considered before(all legal, of course) and see what evolves.
And whoop it up a bit while I'm at it.